Researchers unravel the drivers of large iceberg movement
Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - 10:02
in Earth & Climate
When, in the foreseeable future, a tabular iceberg nearly seven times the size of Berlin breaks off the Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Antarctic, it will begin a journey, the course of which climate researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) can accurately predict. The researchers have now succeeded in modelling how Antarctic icebergs drift through the Southern Ocean, and in identifying the physical factors behind their movement and their melting. Which factors are most important tends to depend on the size of the iceberg in question. Their findings were recently released on the online portal of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.